Monday, February 4, 2008

Child-porn arrest rocks DCF

TALLAHASSEE -- A top employee in the state Department of Children & Families was arrested Friday on child pornography charges, involving at least one child who is in or has been in DCF care, agency officials said.

Al Zimmerman, 40, the agency's press secretary and an employee since 2005, was charged with eight counts of using a child in a sexual performance, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years per count, according to a joint statement issued by state and local law enforcement officials.

Zimmerman, a former television reporter, turned himself in to police in Lakeland, said DCF officials, who added that Zimmerman was immediately fired. Authorities planned to book him into the Hillsborough County Jail because Tampa police helped conduct the investigation along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the CyberCrime Unit of the state Attorney General's office.

Investigators determined that at least two victims between the ages of 16 and 17 were solicited by Zimmerman to perform lewd acts, which Zimmerman used to create child pornography, police said.

Late Friday, DCF's communications director Eric Geraghty -- Zimmerman's boss -- said one of the two children had been within the agency's care.

''We can confirm that at least one child was from within the foster care system,'' she said.

Senior DCF staff was briefed about the investigation, said George Sheldon, the agency's deputy secretary and a longtime confidant of DCF chief Bob Butterworth. At 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. Friday, others in the administration were alerted via e-mail, and told that Zimmerman was being fired immediately.

''I can assure you I will not tolerate the integrity of this department being compromised by the actions of one individual,'' Butterworth told The Miami Herald. ``Mr. Zimmerman has been terminated.''

The allegations were as untimely as they were lurid.

Butterworth and his staff have been making headway at reforming an agency whose problems, over decades, have come to be viewed as all but intractable. Lawmakers had noticed some of the progress. But DCF is facing serious challenges as the Legislature begins to formulate a spending plan with shrinking revenues.

''We are shocked,'' Butterworth said. ``We really feel as if he has betrayed us.''

Zimmerman had an accomplished career as a television newsman before moving into public relations a few years ago, working for a television station in Texas and Bay News 9 in Tampa Bay before accepting a spokesman position with DCF in Wildwood. When the DCF press secretary position became vacant a year or so later, Zimmerman went to work in Tallahassee, earning an annual salary of $75,000.

At a staff meeting of regional administrators and other top managers Friday afternoon, news of the arrest left employees stunned, Sheldon said.

''There was silence; no one asked questions,'' Sheldon said.

Likeable and easygoing, Zimmerman had made friends not only with senior DCF staffers but with top officials at the governor's office and in state government.

''You do feel like you know someone so well,'' Sheldon said. ``It hits so close. You kind of say, What did I miss? Should I have seen something I didn't see?''

Both Butterworth and his deputy added that Zimmerman has not been convicted of any crime, and they encouraged employees Friday to wait for the state's judicial process to run its course before making conclusions.

''I had asked staff not to jump to conclusion, or to listen to rumors, until all the facts came out,'' Sheldon said.